Working for FREE!!!!???

Specialties Geriatric

Published

I finally received a job offer after more than 6 months of searching as a new grad. The job is with an LTC, the pay sounded great until after I started talking and observing nurses. I have been told not only by several of the nurses but also administrative that it is basically impossible to get paid past your shift, and nobody ever gets out on time. Most of the nurses stay at least an hour after their shift and do not get paid. Today I shadowed an RN who was still charting 2 hours past her shift (I finally left while she was still charting so I have no idea what time she finally got out). I will NOT work for free!! I am so upset that all of my hard work and sacrifices that I went through to obtain my BSN has come to this.

No lunch breaks allowed by company or by time constraints? Either way legally the company has to provide a lunch break

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Specializes in Medical Surgical.

I worked LTC for 1 1/2 years, I always got paid for my overtime, they would often beg me to work overtime. Take the job, then after 2-3 months, find a new facility. Sounds like a terrible place to work.

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Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.
Oh please. They are wizards at one thing: getting out on time. Easy to do when you don't take care of patients.

I'm on the floor taking care of patients, and I usually leave on time. amoLucia told you exactly how I do it...except that I make coffee and lots of it.

However it was not always at this, especially at my last job where we were often short-staffed and I was also developing time management skills. But I remained clocked in until the work was done, though I'll admit to working through breaks on occasion.

I know life in LTC is a whole different beast. But staying late to finish up plagues nurses in many patient-care specialties.

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That is common practice in LTC. I would stay clocked in though

Only problem is that most LTC facilities will write you up for overtime. It's a lose lose situation, they say it's illegal to clock out and work for free but yet if you stay on the clock you get written up.

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Specializes in burn ICU, SICU, ER, Trauma Rapid Response.

This is exactly why the glut of nurses was created. In the not very distant past (before 2008) they could not have got away with that for long. Nurses would have voted with their feet and the LTC would have been forced to change it's ways or have no staff. Obviously treating nurses fairly is very expensive so the oversupply of nurses was deliberately created using the false "nursing shortage" propaganda.

While the economic crash moved the day of over supply ahead by a couple years, it did not create the over supply. The oversupply took a long time to create and was well on it's way to being reality before the economic crash.

The deliberate oversupply of nurses has been fantastically profitable for LTCs, hospitals, schools of nursing, as your experience shows. Of course profitability was the motivation in the first place to create on oversupply of nurses using false propaganda.

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Specializes in military nursing.

When I worked LTC I would work with 23 pts: 1 RN and 2-3 CNAs. In my facility only the LPNs were unionized. Although they asked us to limit our overtime, they never told us to work off the clock. In the beginning of my employment they told me they understood I would have overtime as it takes a while to get the groove and the infamous time management. However, I worked for a Catholic facility that has hospitals and LTC centers all over the West Coast, and I believe their model is much different than others. My advice would be to eat breakfast before you get to work, bring a water bottle (if you're dehydrated you won't work as efficiently), bring your own lunch, and take advice from your more senior nurses that seem to get out on time and appear HAPPY with their profession. The best of luck!

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Specializes in Gerontology, Med surg, Home Health.

I have no issue with my nurses staying late if there was a fall or multiple admissions or some other catastrophe, but it is VERY annoying to walk on the floor to see them standing around doing nothing and then they stay late to finish their work. They are also told NOT to punch out and stay.

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Specializes in ER, Trauma, Med-Surg/Tele, LTC.
Just know that there are some nurses who actually DO get out on time. But they are extremely focused and wizards with time mgt.

They are NOT social butterflies; yes to friendly and socially polite, but they don't waste time looking at your kids' candy bar catalogs or looking at you new doggie pix. They keep the personal phone calls/texts down to an absolute bare minimum. And they ate their breakfast at home so they're not walking around making coffee & eating cereal. And they don't chit-chat with the social worker, dietician or maint man as they push the med cart down the hall. And they are non-smokers.

It is a job to them and they don't want to waste any time. It usually comes with experience.

Just for an experiment - watch others for time-wasting activities and you'll see it happening.

I'm somewhere in-between the 2 groups, esp the times when I have to wear 2 hats (supervisor & floor nurse).

Not every work environment is the same. Even your wizards wouldn't have finished on time at one place I worked. I've always been good with my time management and don't chit chat and socialize at work. If there's one thing in common that different supervisors can agree on with me, it's that I'm fast. Whatever needs to be done is already done by the time a supervisor brings it up to me. Yet at this one SNF I would always work through my lunch and still have to stay anywhere from half an hour to an hour late EVERY single night. And so did the other nurses. I had an average of 40 to 45 SKILLED patients, not custodial. This meant charting on almost all of them with around 20 or so needing Medicare charting as well. Also, there was at least one admission most days, although sometimes there would be two or three (I worked 3-11 primarily). Under former management, it was still workable and I almost always went home on time. This was because despite the heavy work load, management helped quite a lot. The ADON would help the RN supervisor follow up all the labs and help enter orders. When it was really heavy, the DON would help as well. Because of all the help, day shift rarely had to leave work for the next shift to carry out. The 3-11 RN supervisor was free to do their IVs, admissions, and Medicare charting and follow up on labs that came during that shift. The floor nurses focused on meds, treatments, and regular charting. When management changed it became unbearable. They never helped the nurses as the old DON and ADON did. And because it was enforced that the morning nurses clock out on time, lots of work would be left over for 3-11 to carry out. They also gave the RN supervisors more work and assignments, so they weren't able to really help the floor nurses anymore. So, please, don't discount that some places really are that horrible and blame the nurse for not being a "wizard with time mgt."

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Oh please. They are wizards at one thing: getting out on time. Easy to do when you don't take care of patients.

Ummm...WHAT.

I really hope you were kidding.

I happen to be one of these time management "wizards" that gets out on time, and I give each and every one of my residents the best care possible. I have always been a stickler for budgeting my time and developed a practice in clinicals that serves me equally well on the job. I make a grid on paper for my 12 hour shift. Four sections for each 3 hour block, and for each section I list all tasks that must be accomplished within that 3 hour time frame.

The only times I have NOT left work within 15 minutes if shift' end were when one of my residents had a fall just before shift change, a resident death that necessitated that I stay and take care of arrangements, or a dreaded late afternoon admit. I am never late leaving because I am stuck still doing stuff that I really had ample time during the day to complete.

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the key to your POV is in the last sentence. Not every place would provide you with that time. as the poster before you commented there ARE places that bad!

Ummm...WHAT.

I really hope you were kidding.

I happen to be one of these time management "wizards" that gets out on time, and I give each and every one of my residents the best care possible. I have always been a stickler for budgeting my time and developed a practice in clinicals that serves me equally well on the job. I make a grid on paper for my 12 hour shift. Four sections for each 3 hour block, and for each section I list all tasks that must be accomplished within that 3 hour time frame.

The only times I have NOT left work within 15 minutes if shift' end were when one of my residents had a fall just before shift change, a resident death that necessitated that I stay and take care of arrangements, or a dreaded late afternoon admit. I am never late leaving because I am stuck still doing stuff that I really had ample time during the day to complete.

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I would be glad to participate in this discussion. Today I clocked out late at 0730, but I actually stayed charting until about 0820. I was so mad by the time I left. I rarely stay to chart late, but it was unavoidable as I had a resident fall during my med pass which my shift happens to run out on so I could not stop med pass and chart and then catch up later. I had to try and do my assessment and carry on with med pass at the same time. I am not very fast at that type of charting and it is lengthy documentation both in the computer and then done again on paper. I feel that the Incident report and charting in the residents private chart are redundant . I decided to clock out early because I was already racking up overtime which is basically forbidden. I do see a few nurses who regualarly clock out and then come back to chart. I dont do that anymore unless it is something involving an incident report. Too bad I dont work nights, because I hate to be seen sitting at the nursing station after 8 am when the DON and Administrator walk in. I wished I was invisible at that point because I know all they are thinking is what is she doing here and how much overtime is she getting. The fact is that there is not enough time to take care of tasks and real nursing care or assessments because we have too many residents.

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Luckily I accepted another job offer that starts this week so I am not unemployed long. My former classmate has been working for the same company just in another city for a month and it's the same story over there and she also agrees that what this company is doing is illegal along with a bunch of other things that are illegal; she's trying to find another job. I shadowed 4 nurses- none of them got out on time let alone in an hour. I try to stay out of drama but I can't let this go, I will be reporting them to the state soon.

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